Top 10: If its processors operate at the full capacity of 10 petaflops, it could earn a place among the world’s top 10 fastest supercomputers

10 petaflops: (1 followed by 15 zeroes of floating point operations per second) a clock speed a million times faster than the fastest consumer laptops

EKA: Though India has built or hosted supercomputers since the 1990s, it held a ‘top 10’ spot only once, in 2007, with the EKA built by the Computational Research Laboratories, which is part of the Tata group

This position was lost, though several ultra-fast machines exist in Indian academic institutions; they feature in the 100s or 200s in global rankings

The as-yet-unnamed machine will be jointly hosted at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting at Noida in Uttar Pradesh

For the first time, colleges and other research institutions can log in and harness its power to address problems, ranging from weather modelling to understanding how proteins fold

The processing speed of supercomputers is only one of the factors that determine its worth, with power usage and arrangement of processors, being other key metrics that determine the worth of a system

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2.Arctic vault receives new seed deposits
Source : The Hindu

Some 50,000 new samples from seed collections around the world, including India, have been deposited in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault at an Arctic island

The Labour Ministry has proposed that factories with up to 500 workers be allowed to lay off workers or shut shop without seeking government permission. To give firms flexibility in hiring and firing employees.

Industrial Disputes Act, 1947:

At present, factories with up to 100 workers are allowed to go in for retrenchment, lay-off or closure without seeking government permission

There has been demand from the industry to increase the threshold limit for factories to seek permission for retrenchment from 100 workers to 500 workers

Sixth Economic Census:

Around 99% of a total of 4.53 crore non-agricultural establishments employed less than 100 workers in 2013-14 and were allowed to retrench workers or close shut shop without government permission

Earlier attempts:

Till 1975, the requirement for prior permission was only for establishments with 1,000 workers that was decreased to 300 workers in 1976 during the Emergency and later brought down to 100 workers in 1982

NDA government in 2002 had also proposed allowing factories with up to 1,000 workers to lay off workers without government permission

In 2005, the Centre had released a discussion paper titled ‘Making Labour Market Flexible’ for stakeholder discussions proposing an increase in the threshold limit for seeking permission for retrenchment or closure under the Act to 300 from 100 workers

However, subsequent governments couldn’t take the proposal forward due to central trade union opposition

Investors hampered:

It is incontestable that the law on prior permission has a chilling effect on new investors, particularly in a situation in which there are many other unfavourable factors inhibiting investment

New investors are daunted by the requirement of permission as they fear that they would be burdened by the need to continue employing the work force even after it has become unprofitable for them to run the business

Labour Code on Industrial Relations

The Labour Ministry is set to discuss the proposed Labour Code on Industrial Relations

The code:

In May 2015, the Labour Ministry had proposed integrating three labour laws — the Trade Unions Act, the Industrial Disputes Act and the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act — into a single code for industrial relations

It had then also proposed allowing factories with up to 300 workers to retrench workers or close down without seeking official sanction

However, the Centre had put the proposals on the back-burner after series of protests from the central trade unions on the proposed labour law reforms

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4.Ancient giantpenguin lived alongside dinosaursSource : The Hindu

A study of a giant ancient penguin fossil found in New Zealand. Penguins are much older than previously thought and their evolution probably dates back to dinosaur times

The new find is one of the oldest penguin fossils in the world, dating back to 61 million years ago

Details:

The bones differed substantially from previous penguin finds of a similar age and showed that the variety of Palaeocene penguins, living between 66 million and 56 million years ago, is greater than previously thought

Penguins had reached enormous proportions early on in their evolutionary history and were already more diverse 60 million years ago than we had previously assumed

This diversity indicates that penguins probably evolved during the age of the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago

Waimanu: Until now it had been assumed that Waimanu was the only penguin alive during this time

There are antidotes for VX exposure available and they are most effective when administered immediately

Banned!!

As a chemical weapon, VX is banned under a number of international agreements including the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention

The 1925 Geneva Protocol came about after the use of poisonous gas in World War I, which was later extended by the 1993 Convention to include a ban on their development, production, stockpiling, retention and transfer of chemical weapons

The Chemical Weapons Convention classifies VX as a Schedule 1 chemical, which means it poses a “high risk” to the convention and is rarely used for peaceful purposes

Signatories are only permitted to keep Schedule 1 chemicals in small quantities for research, medical, pharmaceutical of defensive use, according to the Arms Control Association

Both the US and Russia have in the past admitted to keeping stockpiles of VX, and under the Convention are obligated to destroy them

Who has it?

VX nerve gas was first used during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s

It’s part of the same family of toxic substances as Sarin, which was used in the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway

In the attack, members of the Aum Supreme Truth cult released Sarin nerve gas that killed 12 people and sickened more than 5,500 commuters

VX is said to be relatively easy to produce in a reasonably sophisticated laboratory

Any country with a sophisticated chemical weapons effort can produce VX

The formula has been around since the 1950s so it’s nothing new, it just has to be made the political will and determination that we are going to build this weapon.

A record-breaking mass nesting by 3.8 lakh endangered olive ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) took place at the Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district of Odisha in February 2017

No nesting last year:

Interestingly, no mass nesting had taken place at the site a year ago

It was then suspected that several environmental factors, including chemical factors like salinity of the beach and the sea near the coast, may have prompted these marine reptiles to give the coast a miss in 2016

Mass nesting:

According to experts, most mass nesting sites of olive ridley turtles in the world are located near river mouths, where salinity is low

However, a lot still needs to be explored with regard to the influence of the salinity factor as not much is known about the relation between mass nesting by these endangered turtles and coastline salinity

What may have prompted the mass nesting now?

A sandbar emerged at the mouth of Rushikulya river near Purunabandha this year

This prevented fresh water from the river from entering the sea directly

So the fresh water started flowing northward & this must’ve decreased the salinity of sea water near the coast towards north of the river mouth

Usually, mass nesting takes place between Gokharkuda and new Podampeta, where the effect of fresh river water diverted by the sandbar may be high

Salinity effects:

Low salinity also means more small fish and insects, which are food for the turtles near the coast during mating and mass nesting seasons

Olive ridley turtles bury their eggs on the beach & these eggs incubate with the help of sand heat for 45 to 50 days

High sand salinity may damage eggshells, while low salinity will minimise the corrosive effect

It’s possible the olive ridleys took the salinity factor into account while nesting at Rushikulya rookery coast this year, but what remains unanswered is how they sensed it

About the olive ridley turtles:

The olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) is also known as the Pacific ridley sea turtle

It is a medium-sized species of sea turtle found in warm and tropical waters, primarily in the Pacific and Indian Oceans

Distribution:

The olive ridley turtle has a circumtropical distribution, living in tropical and warm waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans from India, Arabia, Japan, and Micronesia south to southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand

In the Atlantic Ocean, it has been observed off the western coast of Africa and the coasts of northern Brazil, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, and Venezuela

Mass Nesting/ arribada:

Olive ridley turtles are best known for their behavior of synchronized nesting in mass numbers, termed arribadas

Interestingly, females return to the very same beach from where they first hatched, to lay their eggs

In the Indian Ocean, the majority of olive ridleys nest in two or three large groups near Gahirmatha in Odisha

The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the olive ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica

Nesting occurs elsewhere along the Coromandel Coast and Sri Lanka, but in scattered locations

However, olive ridleys are considered a rarity in most areas of the Indian Ocean

They are also rare in the western and central Pacific, with known arribadas occurring only within the tropical eastern Pacific, in Central America and Mexico

Economic importance:

Historically, the olive ridley has been exploited for food, bait, oil, leather, and fertilizer

The meat is not considered a delicacy; the egg, however, is esteemed everywhere

Egg collection is illegal in most of the countries where olive ridleys nest, but these laws are rarely enforced

Harvesting eggs has the potential to contribute to local economies, so the unique practice of allowing a sustainable (legal) egg harvest has been attempted in several localities

Hatchlings are preyed upon as they travel across the beach to the water by vultures, frigate birds, crabs, raccoons, coyotes, iguanas, and snakes

In the water, hatchling predators most likely include oceanic fishes, sharks, and crocodiles

Adults have relatively few known predators, other than sharks, and killer whales are responsible for occasional attacks

On land, nesting females may be attacked by jaguars

It is notable that the jaguar is the only cat with a strong enough bite to penetrate a sea turtle’s shell

It is thought to be an evolutionary adaption from the Holocene extinction event

Conservation status:

The olive ridley is classified as Vulnerable according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and is listed in Appendix I of CITES

The Convention on Migratory Species and the Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles have also provided olive ridleys with protection, leading to increased conservation and management for this marine turtle

National listings for this species range from Endangered to Threatened, yet enforcing these sanctions on a global scale has been unsuccessful for the most part

Arribada management has also played a critical role in conserving olive ridleys

Globally, the olive ridley continues to receive less conservation attention than its close relative, the Kemp’s ridley (L. kempii)

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